A MACHETE-WIELDING thug who set out to threaten a rival ended up being shot by his trigger-happy accomplice.

A MACHETE-WIELDING thug who set out to threaten a rival ended up being shot by his trigger-happy accomplice.

The bungling duo wanted to even the score with another man in a long-running vendetta.

But rather than put the frighteners on their enemy, Raymond Hetherington, 34, pulled a sawn-off shotgun from his car and inadvertently shot his friend Brian Sutton who was stood nearby armed with a machete.

Sutton’s stomach took the full force of the blast and was riddled with shotgun pellets. He was rushed to hospital for surgery and was later arrested.

At Durham Crown Court, Recorder Anthony Kelbrick yesterday sentenced the 44-year-old of Aylward Place, Stanley, to two years in jail for his role in the incident last June.

Tony Davis, representing Sutton, told the court: “It can only be a very rare case where the person who pleads guilty to violent disorder and possession of a machete is before the court with very serious injuries himself, having been the subject of transferred malice at the hand of Hetherington.”

Sutton stopped his car in South Moor, near Stanley, County Durham, on June 16 when he saw his rival and his partner walking past a row of shops.

Arming himself with a machete, used in his work as a gamekeeper, he ran up to the pair and made threats to kill.

The target ran inside a shop leaving his partner outside with Sutton. Hetherington, who was jailed in January for nine-and-a-half years for his role in the debacle, happened to be driving past at the time.

Mr Davis added: “No-one knew at that stage that Hetherington had taken it upon himself to get out the car, take out a loaded weapon and then fire it in the direction of the shop.

“It is perhaps only by very good fortune that the back of Sutton’s head was not blown off.

“When seeing his rival walking along the street in daylight, Sutton obviously wanted to remonstrate with him but did not have in mind physical violence.”

The court heard the intended victim had previously hit Sutton over the head with a wine bottle in the feud spanning several years.

During his sentencing earlier this year Hetherington, of Unity Place, Stanley, County Durham, said the final straw came when a threatening note believed to be from the rival was put through his letterbox. Sutton, who described himself as a ‘family man’ in a letter to the judge, has spent nine months on remand while waiting to be sentenced. He’d enrolled on a series of prison courses aimed at parenting and computers.

He was sentenced to two years behind bars for each offence.

The sentences will run concurrently and the time he’s already spent in custody will be deducted from the sentence.